


But Times Are Hard and Though I Tried....

by twentyandeightquarters (starsandash)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Character Death, Gen, Vampires, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-04
Updated: 2012-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-04 19:28:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandash/pseuds/twentyandeightquarters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Aw come on, it’s the end of the world! We have to ride in style. I mean, if it were apocalypse, which it is in case you missed the living dead wandering the streets, wouldn’t you steal an awesome supped-up ’67 Shelby? I mean really.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Times Are Hard and Though I Tried....

**Author's Note:**

> Trying out the posting thingie. Old work. Nothing else in this universe, just a one off. For a writing challenge requiring: bees, blue sued shoes, 67 Mustang, tomato aspic, The Arrogant Worms (Lyrics used from The Last Saskatchewan Pirate), papayas. movies mentioned do indeed exist.

“I can’t believe you stole a car.”

“Aw come on, it’s the end of the world! We have to ride in style. I mean, if it were apocalypse, which it is in case you missed the living dead wandering the streets, wouldn’t you steal an awesome supped-up ’67 Shelby? I mean really.” I look over to her, and she's wearing a grin that fits the insanity the world has turned to. Of course she would be grinning, that look practically lives on her face. Her hair whips around her face, caught in the wind coming through the smashed out side windows. The zombies had given us some trouble.

“I suppose. I mean, it really is a pretty blue colour. Did you know I grew with a Mustang? I think it was even a ’67. It was defiantly blue.” I lean back into the back leather seats, my bare feet dangling out my window. I’d abandoned my blue-sued shoes to the floor, we were farther south than I’d ever been in the summer and the heat was killing me. I clearly remember the air-con being utter shit in my childhood car as well.

“See! Its fate, I’m telling you. “

I snort at her statement. This wasn’t fate, this was some insane Romero-Lugosi Hollywood nightmare. We hadn’t run into many vampires yet, but zombies covered the west like a plague. And as undeniably awesome as zombie flicks were, whacking off your neighbours head with a shovel in self defence was decidedly less cool in real life.

I twist sideways to push at buttons on the radio. In most places the radio was still going. It was mostly outdated warning signals, telling you where to drive, what not to do, to beware of radicals and wear garlands of garlic around your neck. But every once in a while, you’d come across something good, some last crazy punk holed up in a studio playing whatever they could get their hands on. 

The stations cut in and out, fuzzy and distant. I wasn’t sure where we were, but it was somewhere that cacti grew and red rock formed mountains beyond the flat endless badlands. The sky was endless burning blue. I thought maybe it was the Nevada desert.

_-for this is the hand of God! For we have sinned and welcomed sinners into our homes, and for this His mighty restitution falls upon us in the form of the un-dead, in the blood of-_

_-scientists in London have been desperately studying what they believe is a mutation in bumble bees, their sting leading to what has been vampiric-like traits in those that have fallen ill. This mutation appears to transmit through the saliva of the infected. There is no explanation yet for the re-animation of the dead bu-_

_-ight falls seek shelter immediately, and do not answer you door. Do not trust strangers, no matter their story, and if your own mother begins to act strangely do not feel sympathy for she will become a different person and infect you, turn her out, and-_

It’s my turn to wear a wild grin as I turn the dial once more and find what I was searching for.

“Fuck yes! Awesome!” Cries the wild-child driving beside me, and we both begin to belt out the well known tune.

_\- for every kind of job, the answer always no  
"Hire you now?" they'd always laugh, "We just let twenty go!" (Ha ha!)  
The government, they promised me a measly little sum  
But I've got too much pride to end up just another bum_

_Then I thought, who gives a damn if all the jobs are gone  
I'm gonna be a pirate on the river Saskatchewan! (Arr!)  
And it's a heave (ho!) hi (ho!), coming down the plains  
Stealing wheat and barley and all the other grains  
And it's a ho (hey!) hi (hey!), farmers bar yer doors  
When you see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores!-_

***

“We should pull over for gas the next place we see. Stock up on some food.”

“Would be a good idea.” I reply, looking to the gas gage. It’s getting low, and we’re all out of extra. We have to stop soon. It’s a scary thought, to step out of the car. A city always seems empty until the un-dead catch a smell of the living. Daylight may stop the vampires, but zombies are a different problem. “We should see if we can find some shotgun shells too. We’re almost out.”

Its hours before we reach human habitation. I don’t know whether to be happy or horrified to be driving through Las Vegas. I’d never been here before the world went to shit, and it’s not nearly as appealing now. Garbage, paper and the occasional shopping bag or scrap of bubble wrap litters the empty streets, cars are abandoned everywhere. In the slowly fading daylight everything is covered with a orange tinged dusting of dirt and grime. It feels utterly, unnaturally abandoned. The silence is eerie, and none of this famous City of Lights neon signs still work. 

We weave through the streets carefully, and I keep an eye out of any movement with hands on my shotgun. It had been so long since we’d seen another living being we had a strict shoot-first-don’t-slow-down-to-ask-questions-later policy. As far as we could tell from the radio, big cities got hit the hardest, while some tiny towns were completely spared at first. The virus or mutation or reckoning or whatever it was, no one agreed on the cause, seemed to move at random through North America. Too fast to get away from, too vicious to hide from. The general consensus seemed to be ‘head south’, as it was too late to get out of the country. Even if there was someone to fly the planes, no country would let them land as they were too afraid of bringing this hell down upon themselves. 

Sure, they hadn’t completely abandoned us. At first food would drop from the skies, like aid to a foreign war torn country. But that was just on the shores, and soon it had stopped all together. And while they were looking for a way to stop whatever this was, it was more in their own interest as anyone else’s. No one with a cure would arrive here.

So it was south we were heading. When we were driving we were okay, it was daytime and vampires couldn’t come out, the zombies certainly weren’t smart enough to drive. But we had to stop for gas, and food.

And even more dangerous-sleep.

Sleeping in shifts never seemed to work out well, and at night....well, you wouldn’t want to be outside anyhow.

We pulled over into a gas station and I crossed my fingers that it would hold some fuel. It was hard to tell if there would be gas left, or if it had been drained already by people like us. Lost, lonely people heading as far south as they could manage before they too got caught and pulled under. Hoping to whoever clearly wasn’t listening that they may find other survivors, a safe place, a new life. 

We hop out of the car, careful, armed with our stolen weapons. We relied on shotguns and machetes now. Shotguns could blast off a rotted head, and machetes didn’t need to be reloaded. It was a good combo. We had chainsaws at first, an awesome and classic way to mow down zombies. And don’t get me wrong, they worked, but they required gas as well. And that stuff was precious, too important to waste in chain saws. We had a makeshift flame thrower but we rarely used it, propane tanks were even harder to come by and therefore a last ditch effort to save ourselves. And looking at it always made me miss our third passenger. Months ago we got swarmed, and we tried to save her, we did, but...

“We got gas! Awesome, finally. You go in and grab food, I’ll fill the car and the jerry cans.” Her voice wakes me out of my reverie and I go inside.  
We had been living off chips, penny candy, cold canned soup and beef jerky for long enough that it seemed like the only food I’d ever eaten. Sure, there was Kraft dinner and ichiban and all the needed ingredients for tomato aspic, but how were we supposed to cook it? Even if we found a working stove we couldn’t necessarily stay still that long. Any real food was well past the expiry date. Gardening was defiantly a lost cause. 

Walking past the broken down refrigerator racks I could see the twisted, rotted remains of food. It was impossible to tell what they were, sandwiches, oranges, burgers, papayas; all that was left was mouldy black shapeless masses.

I pass a rack of movies as I fill my arms with bags of food.

_Cheerleader Ninjas- They team up with a computer nerd to fight Catholic Schoolgirls and save the world from internet zombie domination!_

_Black Sheep- There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand and they’re pissed off!_

_Mary Poppins- Its supercalafragilisticexpialidocious fun for the whole family!_

I end up making four trips to the car with arms full of bags and cans, packing the back seat full again. 

I end up stealing a pen with a fuzzy purple dinosaur on the end as well. It was kind of awesome.

I’d been documenting obsessively, trying to get a grasp on what was happening and share my story all at the same time. Maybe someday, years from now, when the madness dies down, explorers will find our car, abandoned somewhere desolate after we’d been attacked and joined the ranks of the living dead. Maybe my writings will help them. It would help me to know that someone, anyone knew we hadn’t given in. Knew that we’d taken the hard road, kept running and fighting and trying our best to live.

“We should find a place to hole up for the night.” I tell her as she loads the last jerry can into the trunk. “It’ll be dark soon.”

We end up driving almost out of town to a little crappy motel on the edge of nowhere. We were still far to close to the city to really be safe, but we were out of time and daylight. The thing about cities, even this long after this all started, is that they were basically hives for vampires. Lots of nice, dark buildings to hide in.  
We take all our weapons and some food inside and spend the next half hour till true sun down moving as much furniture as we can in front of the single window and the door. We always carry nails and hammers so we can rip apart wooden furniture and nail it up over weak spots.

The zombies may not have spotted us yet but the vampires will know, and as soon as the burning sun drops below the horizon they’ll be here. We’ll hear their inhuman screams as they throw their bodies into the walls, trying to break in, hungry, so hungry. Desperate for sustenance. Trying to survive.

And she’ll ask me, like she does every night as we huddle together on the floor.

Will we make it?

And I’ll answer, as always, I promise.

But as time goes on, I’m not sure there’s going to be anything to make it to.


End file.
